Bidini’s Midnight Light

Dave Bidini releases 13^th book

Author, musician, journalist, occasional reluctant-politician and all-around decent human being, Dave Bidini, stopped by the Midtown Brewing Company (MBC) on Sunday to promote the launch of his thirteenth book entitled Midnight Light. Bidini is the only person to have been nominated for a Gemini, a Genie, and a Juno, as well as CBC’s Canada Reads. He is a three-time National Magazine award-winner from his time at the National Post and is also the founding member of Canadian musical supergroup, The Rheostatics. The afternoon event was the latest instalment of the breweries quarterly writers’ series created and curated by local artist and Stewart Jones. Both Jones and Bidini are long-time Waterkeeper friends and supporters, as well being connected through the Kingston cultural scene, to which both have been a part of for decades. Bidini has also been a frequent visitor to the County as of late, with concerts at the Regent Theatre and the Hayloft DanceHall, as well an event he hosted above Books & Company for the launch of the novel Sleep, By Nino Ricci. A novel which won the 2016 Canadian Author’s award for fiction.

Midnight Light draws from Bidini’s experiences one summer as a writer for the Yellowknifer, a fiercely local newspaper based in the capital city of the North West Territories. So local, in fact that they have zero online presence. The newspaper has always drawn a hard line that it will only report on things occurring within the city lines. Anything else is considered out of bounds and will not be written about. Bidini discovered the paper while attending a literary festival in Yellowknife called NorthWords. He had also realized while attending the festival that this was the first time he had ever been in the NWT.

Dave Bidini at Midtown Brewing Company.

“I fancied myself as someone who knew about the country and could speak about the country and could articulate the national experience, but here was this incredible divot in my imagination, which was the NWT, and it became important for me the change that,” says Bidini.

The book poignantly chronicles the culture and currents of this northern outpost, while also serving as a reminder to the importance of having independent press in a community. Via his reporter badge, Bidini allows the reader to view a snapshot of things happening in this northern city that you want to see, and some you may not. What is apparent from Bidini’s experience is that he was truly moved by the culture and faith he saw writing for the newspaper that summer. He was earnest in his motives when at the book launch Bidini stressed that it would be worth anyone’s while to spend the money on a plane ticket and try Yellowknife as a destination.

Bidini has wielded his pen in many ways over his writing career. Novelist, Journalist, songwriter, and columnist are all different mediums with their own rules and intricacies but Bidini is somehow able to bounce between all these mediums with ease. What’s special about his writing is that throughout all those genres his voice always shines through. His opinions, his attitudes and his uniquely Canadian slant on things is what makes his voice so important today. Bidini’s desire to tell stories, but to also have stories told to him is in turn what makes his writing so intriguing.

Bidini can also add Editor to his ever-growing list of accomplishments. The West End Phoenix is a monthly community newspaper that launched in October of 2017. It is a home-delivered broadsheet devoted to telling the stories of a diverse, compelling and ever-evolving borough of Toronto. The Phoenix is inspired by his summer working for the Yellowknifer.

“I imagined The Phoenix as a way to reflect my own community and to provide a place for the journalists, artists and storytellers who live there to work there, too,” says Bidini.

Contributors to The Phoenix range from young to legendary, and the Board and Advisory Council for the paper consists of cultural heavyweights like Margaret Atwood, Grid founder Laas Turnbull and J-Source managing editor H.G Watson. Every month The Phoenix will select a few stories to publish online but it wants to maintain the integrity of what it means to be a local newspaper by keeping most of its content within the actual pages of a newspaper, so it leaves the online reader with this caveat.

“Every month we select a few stories from the pages of The Phoenix to publish online. To get the full extent of our printed fabulousness, please subscribe and support the writers, editors, photographers and illustrators in your neighbourhood, city and country.”

You can order it from the website and the paper will arrive my mail. The physical mail, not the electronic type. Reading stories on newsprint may be awkward and jarring for the youth of today, but eventually they will get the hang of it. Bidini is not resting by any means after the completion of this book. He has other literary irons in the fire as well as a highly anticipated Rheostatics album to complete and release hopefully next year. Look for more literary events in the County from Bidini sometime in the near future.